


i'm gonna kiss you like the sun browns you

by wolfhalls



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Sex, Enthusiastic Consent, Established Relationship, First Time Bottoming, Fluff and Smut, M/M, just a good time had by all, there's not really a plot here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-06 17:28:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20510759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfhalls/pseuds/wolfhalls
Summary: They’re sitting at the kitchen table when Francis thinks about it –again. It’s become something of a regular occurrence these past few days. When he’s marking essays, when he’s walking to the coffee shop, when he slips underneath the duvet to pull James close – all the bloody time, if he’s being honest. The force of his desire once shocked him, but James opened those floodgates a long time ago. Now, he turns it over and over in his mind.(or: Francis wants to switch things up, and James is very happy to oblige.)





	i'm gonna kiss you like the sun browns you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quentinknockout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quentinknockout/gifts).

> huge thanks to jojo, for everything. 
> 
> the title is from every other freckle by alt-J!

They’re sitting at the kitchen table when Francis thinks about it –_ again. _It’s become something of a regular occurrence these past few days. When he’s marking essays, when he’s walking to the coffee shop, when he slips underneath the duvet to pull James close – all the bloody time, if he’s being honest. The force of his desire once shocked him, but James opened those floodgates a long time ago. Now, he turns it over and over in his mind.

“You didn’t hear a word I just said, did you?” James asks, and that leaves his train of thought well and truly scattered. He looks up, and the guilt must be written all over his face, because James laughs. “Come on,” he says. “Out with it.”

Instead of speaking, Francis looks at James’s hands. Specifically, his long, sure fingers. He thinks about _it _again. He clears his throat. “Are you happy?” he asks.

James makes a small, affronted sound. Francis clearly needs to work on his delivery. “Yes,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Of course I am. Aren’t you?”

“God, yes. Of course I am, I didn’t mean to-” and at this he puts his head in his hands and groans.

“Christ,” James says. “You’re doing a very good job of scaring me. Come on. Look at me.”

Francis does, because he’s not in the habit of refusing James anything. He takes him in – his lovely, warm eyes, his hair that’s getting a little too long, the curve of his mouth. “Sorry. I was a little distracted.”

“By what?”

Francis is pretty sure he flushes from his head down to his feet. “I, uh-” and he squirms under James’s keen gaze. “You like what I do to you, don’t you?”

James grins, the lines that bracket his nose and mouth deepening. “I have a feeling we’re talking about what happens in there,” and he nods towards the direction of the bedroom. Francis’s bedroom that’s rapidly heading towards joint ownership.

“Be serious.”

“I always am!” James leans closer, and takes Francis’s hand. “You can tell me anything you know. Ask me anything. I mean I’ll even try anything, providing it’s not a bit too, you know. Out there.”

Francis thinks of how most nights he brings James apart with his fingers, and then slides into him and feels James’s groan from the inside. To feel him shudder and gasp in a breathtakingly intimate way. Pleasure in reverb. He thinks of how it looks so overwhelming _good. _He wants to feel that. It’s been keeping him awake at night.

“I want you to fuck me,” he says, the words leaving him a rush. He’s so unused to asking for what he wants, and he really, really wishes that a large hole in the ground would appear so that he could jump into it.

“Oh,” James says. His eyes are dark now, and he licks his lips. “Oh, Francis.” He takes Francis’s hand and kisses it. “I had been wondering – you know. How it would-” He presses one last kiss to Francis’s palm. “How it would feel.”

“Have you ever-”

“No. Never.”

Oh. He’d never really considered that. He’d always assumed that James was incredibly experienced, that he’d ticked every box going. To think though, that this could be a first that they will get to share with each other-

“Stop thinking,” James says, running his thumb over Francis’s wrist, right where his pulse is skittering. “Just stop it.”

“One of us has to,” Francis says, but then James leans down to kiss him, and makes this soft little sound against his mouth. “God,” Francis says when they break apart to breathe. “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

-

They wait until Friday, when they can stay up as late as they like, and take things as slow as they need to. James spends an hour making dinner – because if there’s one thing he loves, it’s making an occasion out of something. His hand keeps wandering to Francis’s knee as they eat, and right about now, Francis would have steeled himself with a glass of wine.

“Francis,” James says – and Lord, it doesn’t matter, because Francis could get drunk on that sound. “Do you want to-”

“Yes,” Francis says. He places his hand on top of James’s, and squeezes. “Please.” He lets James walk him backwards to the bedroom, where the bed is neatly made and the window is ajar. The last days of summer are well and truly upon them now, and every so often the breeze catches in the curtains.

James gently eases him back onto the bed, and fits neatly into the cradle of Francis’s thighs. He looks down at Francis with the barest hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. Bright-eyed and hungry, delirious on adoration.

“You’re so lovely,” James says. He pushes his hands up under Francis’s t-shirt, palms splayed against the softness of his stomach. “I really, really want to make you feel good. It’s all I’ve thought about all day.” He dips his head, as if he is trying to be coy. Years ago, Francis would have called the move orchestrated – and it still could be, for all he knows. The difference is that now, Francis is too transfixed, too caught-up in the gorgeous headiness of this, that he can’t find it in him to care.

“Me too,” Francis croaks. “I’ve been thinking about-” and he closes his eyes as he feels the colour rush to his face. God, he wishes he found this as easy as James appears to. He wishes that he could put it into words – any of it.

Luckily, James takes pity on him then, and cradles Francis’s face in his hands and kisses him. Chastely at first, and then after a few minutes of coaxing, open-mouthed and needy. Like he’s starving for it. “Let’s get undressed,” James says when they pull apart. He tugs at Francis’s collar to belabour his point.

They leave their clothes in a heap by the bed, adding this to the list of things they can worry about later. Naked, James is gorgeous. Long and lean and soft in just the right places. Francis runs a hand up the inside of his thigh, and James’s breath hitches. “Come on,” he says. “I’m supposed to be- well. Ravishing you.”

Francis raises an eyebrow. “_Ravishing _me? What are we? Victorians?”

James frowns, and before Francis can say anything else, he leans down to take a nipple between his teeth. Francis gasps when he bites down. He fists a hand in James’s hair, and tilts his hips upwards. _More,_ he wants to say – but the words don’t come just yet. James presses a kiss to Francis’s chest, then his stomach, and then-

“Can I get you ready?” James asks, his voice slightly muffled against Francis’s skin. From his position, it’s easier for Francis to reach for the beside table and find what he needs. James lays his head against Francis’s stomach and watches him, eyes dark. When Francis has the bottle of lube in his hand, he smiles. “Come on then,” he says, all breathless gusto. He takes the bottle from Francis, and rearranges himself. “Has anyone ever done this to you before? _Specifically _this?”

Francis shakes his head. He watches, rapt, as James slicks his index finger, leaning up on his elbows so he can watch him at work.

“Alright,” James says. “It might feel a little strange – but it shouldn’t hurt. If it does, you tell me. Okay?”

“Okay,” Francis repeats, and then James is looking down between his legs, and moving to-

_Oh. _It does feel a little odd. A blunt sort of pressure. Not bad, not quite good. Just strange. Curiosity kindles in Francis’s gut as James starts to work him open. He’s brought James off like this too many times to count. With nothing but his fingers and a few choice words.

Two fingers now, and _a-ah_, there’s something that really, really does feel-

“Oh, fuck,” Francis says, and lets himself fall back against the pillow. James laughs, and carries on. Francis can do nothing but squirm now, moving with the motion of James’s fingers, chasing more of that feeling.

It’s a haze after that. James brings him perilously close to the edge, only relenting as Francis starts to gasp out little staccato breaths, his telltale sign. There’s the rustle of the condom packet, and James’s sigh as he readies himself, and then-

“Look at me,” James says. He’s shaking, and God, this is a first for him too. Francis keeps forgetting that. He’s lining himself up now, and when he’s sure, he looks back up at Francis, his eyes wide. “Ready?”

“Yes,” Francis says – and then his thoughts scatter in a thousand different directions.

When he looks back on it, the one thing that he’ll always remember about this moment is the sound James makes. The long, low groan that he lets out as he works his way in. It’s an incredible feeling as James pushes forwards, and Francis lets out a laugh. James looks at him like he’s mad, but then he’s laughing too. “Oh my God,” he says. “You feel amazing. You’re amazing.”

“Move,” Francis says, and he’s begging already but he can’t help it. He’s pinned to the bed by the movement of James’s body on top of his, and as James lifts one of his legs up to get just that little bit deeper, he lets out a noise that before tonight, he didn’t even know that he could make. “Jesus. Is it like this every time?”

“Sweetheart,” James says. “I haven’t even started yet.”

They move instinctively, having learnt what the other likes from each other. Francis moans when James strikes that gorgeous, gorgeous spot inside of him as he moves. His cock drags over it again and again, and Francis knows that it wouldn’t be like this with just anyone. James – who knows him so well, who has seen him at his very worst – only he can give him what he needs so much.

“God, I love you,” James says, gasping out the words. He rocks into Francis harder, and bites his lip. The sight is almost unbearable, and Francis feels that low tension start to build in his stomach.

He shivers, letting the shudders roll over his body in a long, searing wave. “Love you too,” he says. James fumbles for his hand, and when he grasps it it’s slick with sweat. He groans again – and Francis knows that sound. When James gives himself over to it entirely, when his world narrows down to nothing but this. Just the two of them.

“Is it good?” he asks Francis. “You make me feel so good when you fuck me,” he says – and Francis bucks his hips helplessly at that. “Oh, God. Please say it’s good. Please say I’m good.”

James gets like this, when he’s close. Needy for praise, for love. Even now, when he’s wringing these noises out of Francis, he asks for it. “It’s good,” Francis says – and he feels like he can barely breathe. His cock twitches against his stomach, and dimly, Francis realises what’s about to happen a couple of minutes before it does. “Don’t stop,” he says – and the pleasure is overwhelming now, just bordering on too much. “You’re going to make me come.”

“Please,” James says, and his thrusts are turning erratic now. He lets go of Francis’s hand, all the better for leverage, but still stays close. “For me. Please, Francis. Please.”

How can Francis refuse that? He goes to get a hand around himself, but then James drives into him so hard he can’t do anything but let his arms fall to his sides and grab at the sheets. His back arches, and he’s going to, he’s really going to-

“_James,_” he says – and that’s all he can manage before he comes, before it’s coursing through him in a way he’s never felt before. He moves with it, writhing and bucking, totally uncaring of how he sounds or how he looks. He keeps his eyes on James the whole time. James, who’s looking at him like he’s caught the moon. Unabashed adoration plain in his gaze.

James comes not long after he does, gasping and moving with short, sharp, jerking thrusts just as Francis’s pleasure is starting to ebb. He’s loud with it, crying out in exactly the same way he does when he finishes with Francis inside him. He shudders with the intensity of it, his eyes brimming with tears a little – and that’s another thing that he does so well. He comes apart so beautifully.

James goes absolutely boneless afterwards, and drapes himself over Francis. He presses kisses to Francis’s shoulders, his collarbone, his neck. “My God,” he says after a few minutes. He’s still trying to catch his breath – Francis can feel the frantic rise and fall of his chest. “You’re a wonder,” he says.

Francis kisses the top of his head, and holds him close.

-

Later, James runs him a bath. Francis is sore in a new and exciting way – his hips ache from where he’d spread his legs so wide, his back hurts from where he’d arched and stretched under James’s hands. It’s inexplicably good. He chases the feeling, and relishes the memories that come with it.

James sits on the floor by the tub while Francis lays in the water. Just on the edge of too hot, exactly how he likes it. He’s clean now, his skin flushed pink. He turns towards James. He’s wearing one of Francis’s old t-shirts, the Springsteen one. He’s reading a book, and he hums as Francis trails a wet finger along his neck. “Shall we watch a film?” James asks, dragging his gaze away from the page. “Or we can indulge in your favourite guilty pleasure.”

“_Star Trek _isn’t-”

James cuts him off with a kiss, half leaning into the bath. It’s an awkward angle, and Francis’s back puts up a token protest, but he ignores it. All he can do is kiss James back, because there is nothing in the world that he wants to do more.

Time passes slowly then, and James's hand finds its way beneath the water. Francis closes his eyes, and listens to the sound of James's breathing, steady and in keeping with the motion of his touch.

“Thank you,” James says later, when the bath is drained and Francis is bundled up in a dressing gown. He trails his fingers along the inner edge of Francis’s wrist. Just like he had at the start of the week, when he was trying to coax Francis’s desires from him. “For letting me in like that. For wanting me.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever not wanted you,” Francis says.

James smiles, and slips a hand inside Francis’s dressing gown. He presses his palm to the jut of Francis’s collarbone, where his skin is still damp and warm. “The feeling is very mutual.”


End file.
